Business of the House

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I do take this opportunity to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Rugby borough council on its award from the FSB. The point he raises is very important, and that is why we are taking forward recommendations in Lord Young’s report to simplify and standardise bidding, payment and advertising of contracts, and to reduce complexity costs and inconsistency when trying to sell to more than one local authority. That will include the abolition of unnecessary bureaucracy such as prequalification questionnaires for small tenders. We hope to ensure greater access for SMEs to all the procurement that is available across the public sector.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Following yesterday’s performance by the Prime Minister—and bearing in mind that when we return in September for three days of the second week we will discuss not any of the issues around lack of growth in our economy, but how our politics is done—can we have any confidence at all that he and this Government will take seriously the real concerns about the way the Conservative party is funded? My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made it clear that the Labour party is going to deal with its issues; when are this Government going to deal with their issues around party funding?

[Mr Lansley]

I am quite interested that the hon. Gentleman says he wants to talk about issues relating to funding in September. I have just announced business relating to transparency of lobbying, non-party campaigning and trade union administration. That will be at the forefront of business here. The point he makes is that he does not want to talk about growth in the economy, and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition did not raise issues relating to growth in the economy and employment. Why? Because we are seeing growth: we are seeing increases in employment and we are seeing unemployment coming down because we are seeing a healing economy, one that is in complete contrast to the earlier 7.2% reduction in gross domestic product, a consequence of the bust that happened under the last Government.